Understanding the Business Competitive Environment

When designing a new strategy for the company, a firm must fully analyze the respective competitive environment in order to come up with decisions that are beneficial. A company must take into account even the minutest details regarding the competitors to understand the factors driving the success of the competitors. PEST analysis, SWOT analysis and Michael Porter’s 5 forces analysis are some ways that develop an understanding of the success of the competitor firms (Porter, 1998). Some questions are given below which help the companies to understand the importance of their expertise and their operations. . How strong is the team of the members at the competitor firm? A firm must focus on their own team and work towards the exploitation of expertise of these members. The other firm may perform well because of their specialization in that field. However, at your company you should make your team strong to gain a competitive edge. 2. What are the practices (operations) adopted by the competitor firm? This helps the firm to gather knowledge on the procedures and methods adopted by the competitor firms. This knowledge helps the company in making its processes efficient in order to stay ahead in the industry and also so that the firms practices can become a benchmark. (Withrow, 2006). 3. What markets or market segments your competitors serve? This question helps the firm in realizing the markets that are being catered and the markets that can be tapped. If the company focuses on itself, it can capture the market of its competitors and create a loyal customer base for itself (Withrow, 2006). 4. What are the competitor’s products/ services prices and promotion strategy? This helps in gaining an insight about the strategies that the companies adopt in order to capture the market. The firm must focus on improving its strategies of cost cutting and adopting to the technological changes so that it can remain ahead of the competition. (Ward, n. d. ) 5. Why customers buy from your competitors? The answer to this question tells about the added value that customers receive as a result of using the competitor products. The firm must focus on providing best services to the customers so that they remain loyal.

Trade Organization

Topic: Trade Trade routes and trade organizations have had an extensive impact on the worlds’ nations and regions. Many effects both negative and positive. Two trade organizations that have made a great impact are the organization of the petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) and the trans-Saharan trade routes of African kingdoms. The organization of petroleum exporting countries was established on September 10-14, 1960. It is an intergovernmental organization of 12 oil producing countries. The 12 countries are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. These 12 countries depend heavily on oil revenues as their main source of income. The headquarters are located in Vienna. The OPEC was founded to unify and co-ordinate member countries in order to secure fair and stable prices for petroleum producers. The OPEC controls ? of the supply of oil in the world. The OPEC has both advantages and disadvantages. Some advantages are that it is more efficient to provide a regular supply of oil to consuming nations. They have better access to recourses to the producing countries. They have had a big influence on the international petroleum market by changing the petroleum policies according to the worlds demand and supply. Some disadvantages of the OPEC are that they can have too much control of the oil and the price because they are main oil producing countries throughout the world. They can hurt the members of the organization by limiting the oil supply.

The Importance of Voting in America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Importance of Voting in America - Essay Example If a person votes he is making sure that he wants the government to know which candidate is best according to him or her. In a huge country like United States with a large population a single person's voice can only be heard with the help of voting. Voting enables a people to raise his or her voice or opinion on pending laws, ordinances, and it also enables them to decide who takes charge of the state offices. The second reason is a general reason but is a very big fact. It's the right of every citizen to vote as all the laws, rules and regulation that would be implemented later by the elected party would directly influence the person. It also makes sure that citizens select the people who will be the leaders of their country.Voting makes it impossible for someone or one party to become a monopoly and stay in the office for more than the legal time. Being a citizen of any country and utilizing the resources of that country it's a persons divine right to vote. The third reason for voting is related to the shaping of a persons life according to his vote. It's a universal fact that every person should live the way he or she wants; the only best way to achieve this is by voting.

Writing an Argument Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Writing an Argument - Research Paper Example Rather than raising the standards of international manufacture and creating a most conducive international business market, the cheap products that flooded the market were of inferior quality and did nothing to help ease the high tariffs that was pegged onto U.S. goods by the other nations in the free trade zone. In effect, by opening up America to goods from other nations, most of which are imitation items that pass themselves off as Class A goods, the political and economic leaders of the country themselves helped crash the American economy. There are a number of reasons as to why the citizens of America may wish to buy foreign made goods. It could be that there is a demand for the item which is not manufactured in America. Or maybe the item cost is much lower if they purchase one that is not American made. Whatever the reason, a market exists for Americans who prefer to buy foreign made goods. Although there is a sound principle involved in people purchasing foreign made items, the only person who benefits from this set up is the domestic importer. Since he imported the goods, he makes the income on the sales of the items. Needless to say, for every business sector that benefits from a particular selling arrangement, there is a sector that will end up with the bum end of the stick. In this case, the domestic importer makes a killing while the domestic manufacturer ends up holding his bag of goods because nobody will buy it due to its higher selling price. (MacDonald, Brad â€Å"International Trade: Commerce Among Nations†) Even worse, by not purchasing American made products, the Americans themselves end up being the harbingers of economic hardship among themselves and their country. The reason that the American economy has managed to survive all the years prior to the advent of free trade was really quite simple. The money was spent within American shores and thus helped move the economy along through taxes collected and the salary of the people working

Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Summary - Essay Example In the United States of America, the most popular professional body with members who are interested in retail security is the â€Å"Association of Convenience and Petroleum Retailing† (NACS). This body offers a platform for employers, employees, and other interested parties to ensure the security of their work environment through intensive knowledge on security, which they are offered. Business owners and employees have a variety of security measures to choose from. However, in the United States, NACS recommends investment in security measures, which are most likely to alleviate crime and insecurity in the business premises. The main control methods recommended include cash control, visibility in stores, the correct positioning of cash registers in stores, training of employees, especially on how to deter robbery, balanced lighting in stores, alarms, electronic video surveillance, and minimal escape routes. These are some of the ways to ensure security in business. The author addresses business security of a variety of premises, including both public and private facilities. Shopping centers and malls in the United States are prone to robbery and other criminal activity, as many people tend to loiter there. The major security measures employed include contract guards, public police, as well as electronic surveillance and alarms. Of importance in the malls are the codes of conduct, which shoppers have to adhere to, as these help maintain order and increase the malls’ security. Banks are a target of robbers, therefore, needs tight security. These mainly employ security measures, which ensure risk assessment and analysis of robbery, and cash control methods. Training of bank employees is also essential, as well as other electronic and digital surveillance methods. In addition, electronic devices, which can detect metal and explosives, are highly used in banks for security measure. Private and public utility facilities present major security concerns, which include sabotage, terrorism activities, theft, and damage of private and public property, among others. Apart from the clients, these utility facilities, which include telephone, gas, water, oil, electricity, and nuclear pose a security threat to the employees. In such industries therefore, employee training is the most recommended security method. Different bodies in the United States, including the International Association of Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS), among others, offer employee training for such industries. Entertainment spots including casinos, amusement parks, beaches, and movie theatres, also need strict security measures, as these are prone to rowdy revelers. This case applies to sports facilities, which also pose a threat to security through the rowdy fans. In the United States today, professionals are looking for better ways of preventing violent and patron behaviors in the sports and entertainment avenues. Most of such areas in the United States emplo y public police and security guards to ensure security. This chapter therefore, addresses security concerns of both private and public spaces and the need of better security measures in future. Chapter 7 In chapter 7, Dempsey primarily discusses the retail shrinkage problem. It is argued that retail shrinkage problem is one of the serious issues affecting modern businesses despite the fact that technology has changed the way business are conducted. According to the author, retail shrinkage accounts for

Conflict Diamonds Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Conflict Diamonds - Essay Example These wars till date have caused a loss of around 3.7 million lives. Now that the war in Sierra Leone and Angola are over, and DRC is also cooling down, the problem of conflict diamonds still exist (Seigel, 133; Conflict Diamonds: Did someone die for that diamond). In 1992, the UN Security Council took steps to solve the problem, but was a failure. In 1993, embargo was imposed on arms trade and diamond exports by the UN Security Council. In 1997, military takeover in Sierra Leone and collapse of Lome’ peace agreement in 2000 showed the same picture. In 2000, an embargo on diamond export from Sierra Nevada was also proposed, but all these did little to solve the crisis situation in these African countries. Causes and Impacts The direct impact of the ‘conflict diamonds’ situation can be seen as the two main problems that need to be discussed here - one is the refugee problem and the other being the child soldiers. The source of this ongoing refugee problem started f rom December 1989 with a rebellion between Liberia and Ivory Coast. It was reported that by March 1990, almost 84,000 Liberians had sought refuge in the neighboring country of Guinea, which was where most fleeing people would seek shelter. When talks of negotiation broke off between the governments of both these countries, a fierce rebellion triggered in Liberia in June 1990, and the refugees were now starting to take shelter in Sierra Leone in large numbers. Most people residing in the common area of border like that of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone started crossing the borders in the form of refugees. These refugees, instead of taking the longer routes, came through the shortest of the ways as crow flies to attend to periodic churches and with alibi of businesses. One major problem was that these refugees, instead of living in the refugee camps started cohabiting in local areas with local people. Land provided to them by the local authorities was used to settle down by construc ting rough unplanned houses as the neighboring areas started becoming overcrowded. Initially, there was co-operation from the host country, but tensions started arising when their numbers started multiplying. Even in some areas, the number of refugees exceeded the number of local people. Tensions started elevating when the rural Liberian refugees could not quite cope up with the urban styles of dressing and mind-set. The tensions were elevated further when there were reduction of already very little resources, mainly due to sloth reaction of the aid agencies. The hosts were never prepared to share their impoverished resources (Magbaily Fyle, 37-47). The second and graver problem arising from the conflict of blood diamond is the increase in the size of child soldiers. According to United Nations (UN), number of child soldiers increased from 200,000 to 300,000 during the period ranging from 1988 to 2002. The increasing use of child soldiers are a slur in the face of the wide claims of various international laws that claim to exert their influence in shielding children from both forceful and voluntary deployment in civil wars throughout Africa. The Liberian war of 1989-1995 shows not the state’s army, but an incredible proportion of children among the rebels. Some conflicts also show a different trend of deploying more child soldiers by the government itself. In Africa, by

Analyzing Fed Policymaking 1996-1998 Term Paper

Analyzing Fed Policymaking 1996-1998 - Term Paper Example With upward rising of the aggregate, there are favorable conditions to drive economic growth such as high job creation, high production, and business expansion. The Federal Reserve policies between 1996 and 1998 were aimed at stimulating growth in ensuring increased productivity, which resulted in increased employment and reduced inflationary rates through control of interest rates. A report by Federal Reserve Board (1999) showed that, economic growth between 1996 and 1998 was remarkable and stronger than many had expected. The economy growth was more than 3.5% in 1997 and between 2.5 and 3.0 % in 1998. By 1998 the real GDP growth was at 3.5%, and was expected to rise further in the following years (Lewis, 1998). According to Lewis, at the start of October 1998, the S& P was abnormally high having risen from about 1000 in earlier years to about 1400 by July 1999. The Fed had to impose a 40% increase in the S &P by hiking interest rates from 4.75 to about 6.5 in the following years. T his rise resulted from an â€Å"irrational exuberance’ where too much money was being injected into the booming internet and technology industries (Lewis, 1998). Figure 1 portrays the general trend of interest rates during this period, Figure 2 portrays the relations between money supply and price levels between 1950 and 2008, while figure 3 shows the dollar performance compared to German’s in 1998. The major driver of the U.S economy that resulted in a high economic growth between 1996 and 1998 was capital spending. Many organizations continued to invest heavily in information technology and modernizing communication equipment to improve their productivity (Lewis, 1998). The market interest rates affect borrowing and lending policies, which affect the production and consumption of goods, products and services. The Federal Reserve Board (1999) explains that, these factors largely influence employment and job creation; high interest rates will discourage investors henc e low job creation opportunities. For example, during this period, Fed decided not to hike the interest rates to control the exponential market growth in preventing the economy from tending to inflation. This is observed in graph 1. In the year 1996, it was expected that inflation and interest rates would be on the rise towards the end of that year, but it turned otherwise (Federal Reserve Board, 1999). As Mishkin (115) explains, the demand for money and interest rates are inversely related using the opportunity cost aspect. This is the expected return sacrificed by an investor by not holding the alternative asset, which refers to a bond in this case. Moreover, demand for money is determined by the wealth or income and the price levels in the market (Mishkin, 116). The federal authority polices during this period were aimed at robust growth in employment, recovery and strengthening of the dollar, and regulated interest rates, which increased wealth and lowered the interest rates mak ing the demand of money to increase. There was a general fall of the domestic interest rates and national debts over this period (Mishkin, 11). In the third quarter of 1998, uproar in financial market globally resulted in a sharp drop in value of the dollar, having dropped from DM 1.7993 to DM 1.6718, which could have shifted the economic growth as well as interest rate policies towards encouraging more borrowing. Low interest rates contributed

Critically examine the problem of corruption in the practice of Essay

Critically examine the problem of corruption in the practice of mediation and arbitration of international disputes - Essay Example onsequences for â€Å"stakeholders and society more broadly†.4While corruption is most often associated with bribery, corruption can occur by other means such as fraud, procurement of a specific outcome, conflicts of interests, improper enrichment and other dishonest mechanisms.5 Most states acknowledge that it is possible for an arbitral award to be obtained by virtue of corruption. At international law, the limited grounds upon which an arbitral award can be reviewed include the â€Å"procurement of the award by corruption† or corruption on the part of an arbitrator or arbitrators.6 Since mediators do not make binding decisions and merely help the parties arrive at their own resolution, the problems of corruption among mediators and parties in international disputes are not as problematic as corruption in binding arbitration.7 In either case, arbitrators and mediators are at risk of corruption charges in instances where the parties are denied equal treatment.8 Safegua rding against corruption in international mediation and arbitration is particularly important because it provides an alternative dispute resolution for parties suspicious of corruption among local judiciaries.9 For the most part, any business sector which might be entrusted with power is typically subjected to a code of conduct which is designed to engender trust in those sectors and thereby reduce perceptions of corruption. Some such codes are the European Code of Conduct for Mediators and the Code of Ethics for Arbitrators in Commercial Disputes. These codes define what amounts to tolerable standards of conduct, the role of the mediator/arbitrator and their duties and responsibilities.10 Setting standards of conduct however, does not by itself ensure that international arbitration and mediation are free of corrupt practices. In this regard, international conventions have established laws that indirectly identify corrupt practices and provide for enforcement techniques for corrupti on. For instance by virtue of Articles 34 and 36 of the UNCITRAL Model Law 1985 an arbitral award is subject to challenge and may not be enforced if the award is inconsistent with public policy.11 Article V(2) of the New York Convention 1958 makes a vastly similar provision.12 An award which is procured by or given under the auspices of corruption is typically perceived as inconsistent with public policy.13 As early as 1963 the ICC set a standard of conduct for dealing with cases in which corruption was obvious. The case was ICC Case No. 1110 in which arbitrator Lagergren did not determine the merits of a case when he found that there had been corruption. The case related to a contract in which an English company had agreed with an Argentine entity acting as intermediary for the acquisition of a utilities’ contract in Argentina. The agreement called for the Argentine entity to receive a commission of 10 per cent of the contract’s value. When the English company did not make good on the agreement, Lagergren ruled that he did not have jurisdiction since: Parties who ally themselves in an enterprise of the present nature must realize that they have forfeited any right to ask for assistance of the machinery of justice (national courts or arbitral tribunals) in settling their disputes.14 Developments since ICC Case No. 1110 indicate that arbitrators would rule on the merits of

Assessment of the patient with acute abdominal pain Research Paper

Assessment of the patient with acute abdominal pain - Research Paper Example The authors has first discussed the anatomical and physiology of organs associated with abdominal pain, then has listed the various bodily malfunctions and diseases which could cause pain, and importantly listed out the procedures that could be undertaken by the nurses as part of the assessment, diagnoses and even treatment of the abdominal pain. â€Å"It is therefore desirable that in addition to traditional nursing assessments, registered nurses are able to ask the correct questions, initiate tests and implement first-line treatments to ensure a timely and effective experience for the patient† (Cole, Lynch and Cugnoni, 2006). The authors first focused on the anatomy and the physiology of organs associated with abdominal pain, by pointing out how problems in one or more organs located within the abdominal cavity can lead to abdominal pain. â€Å"This cavity contains the stomach, spleen, liver, pall bladder, pancreas, kidneys, small intestine and large intestine†¦the bla dder, caecum, appendix, sigmoid colon, rectum and female reproductive organs.† (Cole, Lynch and Cugnoni, 2006). ... Problems in these organs are the main reasons for abdominal pain and those problems are categorized into various diseases and malfunctions like Appendicitis, Biliary colic, Bowel obstruction, Cholecystitis, Gastrointestinal disease, Hepatitis, etc. The authors for major part of the article discuss each of these diseases, their causes, bodily problems associated with it, and importantly the severity, nature and position of the pain. For example, they point out how in the case of Biliary colic, pain will be sudden and is ‘severe and continuous until it resolves spontaneously†, and then in the case of Cholecystitis â€Å"pain can be colicky or constant and is usually localised to the right upper quadrant† (Cole, Lynch and Cugnoni, 2006). After extensively discussing the various causes of the abdominal pain, the authors in the second half of the article has focussed on the role of nurses in assessing the abdominal pain. The authors point out how the nurses should ask r elevant questions to patients with abdominal pain, so that the exact or even the tentative cause of the pain can be diagnosed. Questions should be asked about: > Pain. > Associated symptoms. > Past medical and medication history. > Social and family history. (Cole, Lynch and Cugnoni, 2006). The authors state that the nurses should ask questions regarding pain position, radiation and also the nature of pain. To locate the pain position, the nurses has to first ask the patients to point out the area, where the pain is being felt. In addition, nurses can also place their own hands, pressing and pointing out, where the pain is originating. â€Å"The patient should also be asked if the pain travels anywhere (radiation) or is

Personal Experience Essays Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Personal Experience Essays - Essay Example I have always considered luck to be a luxury among few people who either have lost hope or prefer receiving free things. During the family vacation in Africa, I had a chance of visiting Maasai Mara national park in Kenya. At first I was reluctant to make the trip; however, after my parents convinced me that it will be a memorable experience, I decided to give it a try. Previously, I preferred visiting playgrounds, friends and making a good use of my bicycle; however, I gave up this opportunity for the memorable experience. Our journey to Kenya was interesting considering that we had many stopovers. It was not my first time to board a plane; however, I felt new and encouraged to work hard and reach the highest level of education. Arguably, this would allow me exploit-varied fields of development while also quenching my thirst for adventure. Consecutively, the opportunity allowed me to have an aerial view of different towns ranging from Amsterdam to Nairobi. Upon our arrival in the city, we received tour guides at the airport, which had earlier been booked by my parents. The first day involved having a taste of the variety foods prepared by the many cultures. The opportunity gave me a first-hand experience to taste what felt like food and others that that I found limited interest in having a bite. Nevertheless, my parents were receptive to the diverse cultures hence an encouragement. Day two was the day to remember that confirmed my worst fears while at the same time changing my view of the entire world. This was a day to take a view of the beautiful wildlife and nature, which has been admired by many people. It was a day to have a personal encounter the lion, Giraffes, baboons, monkeys, and other exciting sceneries only common to many in pictures and national geographic programs. Contrary to other days, I was happy; however, the excitement was laced with

Explain Kants Ethical theories Essay Example for Free

Explain Kants Ethical theories Essay Kant’s ethical theory is an absolute and deontological theory. This means that humans are seeking the ultimate end called the supreme good also known as the ‘summon Bonnum’. Kant says that morality is a categorical imperative, this is a duty which must always be obeyed in all possible situations. A categorical imperative is what is needed to find what is right or wrong. Kant argued that to act morally is to do one’s duty, and one’s duty is to obey the moral law. Kant also believe that there was no room for emotion. Kant believe that categorical imperative helps us to know which actions are obligatory and which are forbidden. There are three principles within the categorical imperatives these include Universal law, Treat humans as ends In themselves and Act as if you live in a kingdom of ends. Universal law is putting minority views first. If it is wrong for one person than it is wrong for everyone. An action must not be carried out unless the person believes that the same situation all people would act in the same way. Treat humans as ends in themselves is respecting a person. This means that you can never use human beings for another purpose or to exploit or enslave them, this is because humans are the highest point of creation and demand unique treatment. Act as if you live in a kingdom of ends, this means treat all with respect. Kant believed that all of these helped to create ‘maxims’. A maxim is an absolute moral statement about a universal truth. For example a maxim: Murder is wrong. Therefore it is a universal rule that murdering anyone is wrong. Kant believes that we can only be true moral agents if we are free to make our own decisions. He argues that our freedom to make rational choices is what separates us from animals. He says that is you can do something, you should be able to do something, and if you cannot do something it is unfair to be asked. E.g. it is unfair to ask someone in a wheelchair to run a marathon.

Establish and adjust the marketing mix Essay Example for Free

Establish and adjust the marketing mix Essay Promotions are not just aimed at increasing usage of the products. Followings are five other specific promotional aims. Sales Growth There have two term of campaigns, long term and short term campaigns. In a short-term, the main aim would be to drive revenues or cash flow, it also trigger the buyer actions. In the long-term campaign, the main aim would be intended to lead optimized profit margins. Especially for a new business they might aim to build a customer base in order to cover new start-up business costs and maintain a sustainable business. For the established companies, their aim would be to generate more business during slow or off season periods, and to expand the business into the newer markets. Brand Recognition One of the most popular promotional objectives would be building or maintaining brand recognition. The objective is to let customers or people know and well recognized your brand logo, other symbols or characters. Customers identify it with your company and hopefully associated with good impression to it, this might lead to customers will advertise our brand to his/her friends. It also gives people something to remember you by , that helps the business stand out even more. Understanding and connecting with the image of your brand is critical to long-term customer’s loyalty and profits. Purchase Intent As customers become more familiar with your brand, the next stage is to motivate purchase intent. The goal is to eliminate, neutralize or blocks the efforts of competitors to grab market share. You need to lure customers away from aggressive competitors. Promotional activities can be used such as refreshing trial use, encouraging existing customers to consume more quantity it occurs when customers are satisfied and can see no reason to buy  form another company and more frequency and getting customers to switch from competing options. Some customers are so satisfied with your services they cannot imagine shopping somewhere else A variety of promotional tools are used in this endeavor, including free trial offers or first-time buyer discounts Create Awareness Increased market awareness is a primary promotional objective. A mature product that is providing something new such as a product improvement or enhancement can also turn to promotion. A product thats new to the marketplace will need promotion to be introduced to consumers. In all these cases, the objective is to make noise in the market that results in sales. Goodwill One ongoing objective of companies is to promote goodwill with the public and also public relation campaign. Staying active in community activities and giving to charities are common promotional tools with public relationship. Coinciding with building and maintaining goodwill, public relationship and other promotional campaigns are sometimes used to combat negative publicity already festering. Wal-Mart often uses advertising to promote positive attributes of the company in the face of criticism for some of its business practices.

Oral And Written Feedback To Improve Writing English Language Essay

Oral And Written Feedback To Improve Writing English Language Essay This study is an investigation of the perceptions about effectiveness of oral and written feedback on writing of thirty-seven Cambodian English-major students at the National University of Management (NUM). Two instruments were used to collect data from the oral feedback group (N=19) and the written feedback group (N=18) before and after the two-month treatment: questionnaires and student paragraphs. Results indicate that the two groups equally delivered better performance on holistic writing although oral feedback was viewed as preferable to written feedback. While the former positively impacted on both the micro-aspects (i.e. grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics and spelling) and the macro-aspects (i.e. content and organization), the latter encouraged revision only in language and organization. The study suggests that student writing improve, regardless of feedback method; that preference may not associate with revision; that reading be integrated into L2 writing classes; and that re vision may correlate with feedback intake which depends on learner-focus and teacher-student interaction. Introduction Since the late 1950s, attitudes towards the role of corrective feedback have changed along with the evolution of language teaching methodologies grounded on theories of both educational psychology and second language acquisition with the aim of enabling learners to acquire the target language effectively. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the Audiolingual Method (ALM), based on behaviorism and structuralism, was very popular in second and foreign language classrooms. Error correction was seen as helping learners to form good habits by giving correct responses instead of making structural mistakes. In the 1970s and 1980s, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), developed from nativism, was commonly practised to equip learners with communicative competence in terms of function over form or comprehensibility over grammaticality. It infers that formal correction should be discontinued since it was deemed as interfering rather than facilitating the acquisition of the target language. In the ear ly 1990s, the Interaction Approach (IAA) emerged, and it entailed such three dimensional phases as learning through input, production of language, and corrective feedback that comes as a result of interaction that arises authentically. Since the mid-1990s, the position of feedback, with the dominance of CLT, has been debated among the theorists, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of second language writing and second language acquisition. In 1996, Truscott, for example, claimed that feedback on student writing should be discarded because it is ineffective and harmful. Ferris (1997), on the other hand, argued that feedback is virtuous as it enables L2 students to revise their own writing and assists them to acquire correct English. Because research evidence was scarce in support of feedback, both Ferris and Truscott called for further research into questions about the impact and provision of feedback on L2 student writing (Bitchener Knoch, 2009). Accordingly, a great body of research has been conducted with a look into teacher written feedback: correction strategies (e.g., Bitchener, Young, Cameron, 2005; Ferris, 1997; Ferris Roberts, 2001; Lee, 1997; Sugita, 2006), feedback forms (e.g., Hyland Hyland, 2001; Silver Lee, 2007; Treglia, 2008), feedback foci (e.g., Ashwell, 2000; Ellis, Sheen, Murakami, Takashima, 2008; Sheen, Wright, Moldawa, 2009), students attitudes toward feedback (e.g., Alamis, 2010; Lee, 2004, 2008a; Saito, 1994; Treglia, 2008; Weaver, 2006), and teachers beliefs about feedback (e.g., Lee, 2004, 2008b). These studies suggested that feedback plays a pivotal role in helping L2 students improve the accuracy and quality of their writing. This finding is in line with the Vygotskyan model o f Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which claims that learners need to be provided with scaffolding to be capable of reaching a stage of autonomy and accuracy (Patthey-Chavez Ferris, 1997). However, many of the studies have design flaws in terms of the small sample size or of not having a control group. Other studies explored the effectiveness of other feedback techniques: oral feedback or teacher-student conferencing (e.g., Hedgcock Lefkowitz, 1992; Hyland, 2003; Marefat, 2005; Sheen, 2010a, 2010b), peer feedback (e.g., Kamimura, 2006; Rollinson, 2005; Tsui Ng, 2000), reformulation (e.g., Hyland, 2003; Santos, Lopez-Serrano, and Manchon, 2010), audio-recorded feedback (e.g., Huang, 2000; Jordon, 2004), and computer-mediated commentary (e.g., Ferris, 2003; Hyland, 2003; Hyland Hyland, 2006). However, most of the studies failed to examine which feedback mode was more effective in improving student writing. Even though some of them were comparative in nature, the studies were conducted solely with a group of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners. As a result, conclusion is hard to be drawn with regard to the effectiveness of each feedback strategy when it is applied in another classroom setting where English is in the Kachrus (1985) expanding circle or where English is taught as a foreign language. As Ferris (2003) put it, What is preferable cannot be equated with what is effective, and what is effective for one student in one setting might be less so in another context (p. 107). In light of the aforesaid insightful and encouraging premise, this current quasi-experimental research attempts to compare teacher oral and written feedback in terms of perceptions and efficacy among Cambodian English-major students at the National University of Management (NUM henceforth). Definition of Terms: Oral Feedback and Written Feedback According to Rinvolucri (1994), the term [feedback] originates in biology and refers to the message that comes back to an organism that has acted on its environment. In biology it describes a neutral process, a link in the chain of action and reaction. (p. 287) In second language writing, feedback can be defined as input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the writer for revision (Keh, 1990, p. 294). Simply put, the teacher suggests changes that will make the text easier for the audience to read, or that help the writer to be more aware of and sensitive to his/her reader. When the writer of any piece of writing gets the perspective of the reader, then that writer is able to see more clearly where any points of confusion exist. As Keh (1990) elaborates, The writer learns where he or she has misled or confused the reader by not supplying enough information, illogical organization, lack of development of ideas, or something like inappropriate word-choice or tense (p. 295). In this study, feedback can be operationalized in terms of oral and written feedback (Berg, Admiraal, Pilot, 2006; Hedgcock Lefkowitz, 1992; Hyland, 2003; Hyland Hyland, 2006; Patthey-Chavez Ferris, 1997; Sheen, 2010a, 2010b). Oral feedb ack (OF) refers to the provision of feedback on errors and weaknesses in content, organization, and language (i.e. grammar, vocabulary, mechanics and spelling) through face-to-face conferencing lasting about five minutes for each student-writer. In so doing, the teacher gives comments (in the forms of questions, imperatives, praises, and suggestions), provides correct forms or structures in faulty sentences, tells the location of errors, makes recasts, and gives prompts in the forms of elicitation, clarification requests, and repetition of errors. Written feedback (WF), on the other hand, refers to the correction of errors and weaknesses in content, organization, and language through writing on student paragraphs. In this regard, the teacher makes use of direct versus indirect correction, coded versus uncoded feedback, and marginal versus end comments, in the forms of corrections, questions, imperatives, praises, and suggestions. Literature Review Written feedback A number of studies have been done to examine what to be commented on for substantive revision. For example, Ellis (1994), reviewing several studies on what effect formal corrections have on language acquisition, concluded that the learners whose errors are corrected improve the accuracy of producing existential structures (i.e. There is/are). However, the Ellis-reviewed studies entail only focused feedback, meaning that only one linguistic feature is targeted. Kepner (1991), in a comparative study of feedback on content and grammar, found that students who receive content feedback produce writing that has better content than those who receive grammar feedback. He also found that students who receive formal feedback do not produce fewer errors than the uncorrected group. In another study, Leki (1991) asked 100 ESL freshmen to complete questionnaires to examine how effective feedback was and how they reacted to the positive and negative comments on both form and content. He found that correcting errors in both form and content is beneficial since good writing is viewed as equated with error-free writing. Moving a step away from what to be commented on, several studies have been carried out to investigate how errors should be corrected to improve student writing. According to Ellis (1994), formal feedback is helpful to L2 acquisition only if problems are corrected implicitly or only if the errors are induced and then corrected. In a similar vein, Weaver (2006) explored how 44 students in the Faculty of Business, Art and Design perceived written feedback and if the feedback that they received showed a student-centered approach to learning. In light of interviews, questionnaires, and feedback content, he found that teacher comments are useful only if they are specific and clear, give sufficient guidance, focus on positive points, and are related to assessment criteria. Ferris (1997), examining over 1,600 marginal and end comments written on 110 first drafts by 47 university ESL students, found that marginal comments are more immediate and easier for students to locate errors and revise, whereas end comments can be more useful for writing development since they summarize major problems. Marginal comments are also deemed to be more motivating since the reader is actively engaged with the writers text (Goldstein, 2004, as cited in Hyland Hyland, 2006). In a related vein, much research has focused on whether comment types influence revisions and which of them are more, if not the most, effective. In so doing, Sugita (2006) analyzed 115 revised papers by 75 EFL students at a private university in Japan. He found that imperatives are more effective than statements and questions. In contrast, Conrad and Goldstein (1990, as cited in Hyland Hyland, 2006) found that imperatives, declaratives, or questions were less effective than the type of problem in the feedback. They further explained that problems related with facts and details were successfully revised by 50%, while those dealing with argumentation and analysis were successfully revised only by 10%. Treglia (2008) interviewed two teachers and fourteen students in a community college in the United States to examine how the students reacted to the feedback given by the teachers in the forms of mitigation and unmitigation. This study showed that the students saw both mitigated and dir ective comments easy to revise, but they liked the feedback in the forms of acknowledgements, suggestions, and choices. Alamis (2010) investigated the reactions and responses of 141 students at the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Santo Tomas towards teacher written feedback. In light of questionnaires and student essays, Alamis found that praises are superior to criticisms and that content feedback should entail suggestions rather than questions, direct corrections, and indirect corrections. However, this study is a result of opinion-based responses, so it may be hard to conclude that its findings were valid. Many other researchers have moved farther to find out the extent to which teacher written feedback should be made explicit and sufficient in order to encourage comprehension and revision. In so doing, Enginarlar (1993) used 20-item questionnaires to examine the attitudes of 47 freshmen at Middle East Technical University to coded feedback and brief comment in English Composition I class. This study revealed that the participants like the two feedback types, seeing review work as a type of co-operative learning in which the amount of work and responsibility is shared by students and teachers. Ferris and Roberts (2001) also explored how explicit error feedback should be to help students to self-revise their papers. By analyzing papers written by 72 university ESL students, they found that the treatment groups outdo the control group in relation to self-revision, but the coded feedback group is not statistically different from the uncoded feedback group. Ferris and Roberts also conclude d that less explicit feedback seems to facilitate self-revision just as well as corrections coded by error type. Ferris (2003), in her review of three key studies, suggested that comprehensive feedback (i.e. all errors marked) is preferable to selective one (i.e. only some errors marked) and that indirect correction (i.e. coded and uncoded errors) is more effective than direct one (i.e. teachers making the corrections for students). Lee (2004) analyzed teacher error correction tasks and used questionnaires to and follow-up interviews with teachers and students to examine their perspectives on error correction practices in the Hong Kong secondary writing classroom. Like Ferriss (2003) reviewed studies, this research showed that comprehensive error feedback encourages substantive revision and that students depend on teachers to correct their errors. Oral feedback The effectiveness of oral feedback for improving student writing has still got very few answers (Hyland Hyland, 2006). As such, several studies have been done to examine teacher-student dialogue, and they found that successful conferencing rests on the interactive nature. For example, Hyland (2003) claimed that conferencing is fruitful when students are actively involved, asking questions, clarifying meaning, and arguing instead of accepting advice. Johnson (1993, as cited in Gulley, 2010) did a qualitative study and concluded that the question, a tool often used by teachers and tutors during a writing conference, can be ineffective in eliciting a meaningful response from students (p. 13). By contrast, Carnicelli (1980, as cited in Gulley, 2010), in his qualitative study among English-major students at the University of New Hampshire, showed that conferencing is more preferable to in-class teaching. He also noted that conference might fail if the teacher does not listen to the student, if the student feels insecure, or if the student does not remember the teachers comments (p. 13). However, this study has a design flaw in terms of not having a control group, so it is hard to conclude if such a preference is a result of conferencing, instruction, or practice. In his response to Carnicelli, Keh (1990) did his article review and pointed out that conferencing fails when the teachers take an authoritarian role, dominate the conversation, and pay no attention to what their students ask during the dialogue. He also noted that teacher-students conferencing is more effective than teacher-student conferencing since the former allows them to learn ideas and problems from one anot her. Moving a step away from the teacher-student interaction, several studies have been conducted, focusing on students-related variables that may affect the substantive revision of student writing. In so doing, Marefat (2005) examined the perception about the efficacy of oral feedback on the improvement of writing among 17 male and female Iranian students of English as a foreign language. He found that males could write paragraphs better than females, whereas females outperformed males in essay writing. He concluded that the students can produce pieces of writing with better quality, regardless of the feedback technique. Patthey-Chavez and Ferris (1997, as cited in Hyland Hyland, 2006) investigated how four writing teachers did conferencing with poorer and better students. They found that however useful teacher suggestions were for revision, the poorer students seemed to use advice more often than their counterparts. Better students were more self-confident, and they often used teacher suggestions as a base to revise their own writing. The co-researchers suggest that in the case of less capable students, conferences may be harmful if they entail appropriation rather than intervention. In another study, Goldstein and Conrad (1990, as cited in Hyland Hyland, 2006) noted that the L2 learners having cultural or social inhibitions about engaging informally with teachers are most likely to passively and unreflectively use teacher advice to revise their writing. The co-researchers found that only students negotiating meaning well in conferences were able to perform revision more successfully. This finding was similar to that of Williams (2004, as cited in Hyland Hyland, 2006), claiming that students were successful in using advice when teacher-suggestions were direct, when students actively engaged in negotiating meaning, and when they took notes of teacher comments, during the dialogues. Williams also added that negotiation is a precondition for revising higher-level texts, although her research suggested that conferencing has greater impact on correcting local errors (as cited in Hyland Hyland, 2006). However, the findings of all the four studies are based on the sm all sample size, so it is unclear if conferencing strategies and other contextual factors play a part in improving student writing. In line with the studies grounded on L2 writing theory, a number of studies have been done based on the theories of second language acquisition to investigate the impacts of indirect and direct corrective feedback, focusing on single linguistic structures. For example, Ellis, Loewen, and Erlam (2006, as cited in Sheen, 2010b) did an experimental study to examine whether implicit or explicit feedback is more helpful for adult ESL learners to acquire regular past tense. They put the students into three groups: the group with implicit recasts, the group with explicit metalinguistic feedback, and the group without any corrective feedback. The findings showed that both implicit and explicit feedback does not have any impact on the immediate posttests, but the latter is more effective than the former on the delayed posttests. In another study, Sheen (2007, as cited in Sheen, 2010b) found that explicit corrective feedback is superior to implicit corrective feedback in terms of formal acquis ition in both the immediate and delay posttests when the former is provided in the form of metalanguage and the latter in the form of recasts. Several other studies have also been done to compare input-providing feedback in the form of recasts with output-prompting feedback in the forms of elicitation, clarification requests, repetition of error, and metalinguistic clues. Lyster (2004, as cited in Sheen, 2010b) did a study with a group of fifth-grade French learners to examine whether recasts or output-prompting feedback methods encourage more accuracy of using articles agreeing with the gender of nouns. The study revealed that the output-prompting group alone outdid the control group on all eight measures of acquisition. Ammar and Spada (2006, as cited in Sheen, 2010b) investigated if recasts are more effective than prompts on the acquisition of possessive pronouns among six-grade learners in intensive ESL classes. They found that prompts were more helpful only for students with pretest scores below 50 percent, whereas recasts and prompts together were less effective for those whose scores were below 50 percent. However, t hese studies entail only focused corrective feedback, meaning that only one linguistic feature was targeted. Therefore, the results are hard to be generalized since the effects of recasts and prompts might be different if multiple-linguistic features are corrected. Research Questions As can be seen, no research had been conducted before to explore the comparative effectiveness of oral and written feedback in improving student writing in the context where English is in the Kachrus (1985) expanding circle. Accordingly, the present study sets out to look for answers to the following two research questions: How do Cambodian English-major students at NUM perceive oral and written feedback? Which feedback strategy, oral or written, is more effective in improving student writing as measured by writing performance? Methodology Participants Thirty-seven students participated in the present study, 19 of whom were males and 18 were females, with an average age of 22.59 (SD=.62) years. They were English-major students at NUM, and they had been learning English since Grade 7 of Cambodian Secondary Education (G7CSE) under the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports (MoEYS). The subjects were selected from each English class of the university based on the pre-treatment scores of 150-word paragraph writing. Based on this criterion, 19 of them were put into the oral feedback (OF) group, and 18 were filtered into the written feedback (WF) group. A control group was excluded from this study for two main reasons. First, it is believed that feedback is an essential element, so to get student to write without feedback would be unfair to them. Second, it is claimed that one of the things that students expect from teachers is feedback, so to deny them feedback would be unethical. Instruments Two instruments employed in this study were questionnaires and student paragraphs, both of which were used for data triangulation. The questionnaire, so-called Affective and Effective Response Feedback (AERF), consists of three sections with a total of 22 items: Section A (A1-4 for Demographic Data), Section B (B1-9 for Effective Responses), and Section C (C1-8 for Affective Responses). A five-point Likert scale (1=Strongly Disagree, 5=Strongly Agree) was utilized for the 17 items in the latter two sections (B1-9 and C1-8), and several items thereof (i.e. B1, B3, B5, B8, C2, C5, and C8) were reverse-ordered to reduce response set bias. A statistical validity analysis showed that EARF was reasonably reliable with the Cronbachs Alpha value of .853. The student paragraphs were collected before and after the two-month treatment, and they were inter-rated by three well-trained teachers each with more than four-year experience of teaching writing skills to English-major university students. The scoring was performed based on the researcher-formulated criteria divided into content, organization, grammar, vocabulary, mechanics and spelling, each of which earns equal marks (1=Very Poor, 5=Excellent), with the total score of 25. The reliability of the inter-rated scores employed by the present study was .789 for the pre-treatment scores and .806 for the post-treatment scores, using Cronbachs Alpha coefficient of internal consistency. Procedures Before this study, letters were sent to the Chair of Foreign Languages Center (FLC) of NUM, where it was conducted, and finally to the Rector of the university as well. Once approval letters were received, the researcher went on to select classes for both groups (OF and WF) and sent out informed consent forms. There were informative meetings with both groups of participants to let them know about the study and to receive signed informed consent forms. It was also made clear to the subjects that this study would not affect their course grades. They responded to the questionnaires anonymously, and those who mastered more than 80 percent of the total scores in paragraph writing would be awarded with Certificate of Recognition in order to motivate them to write and incorporate the feedback they had received from one week to another into their revision process. Data collection was conducted in the following steps. First of all, the students were asked to write a 150-word paragraph about the person whom I admire in my life. The paragraphs were then collected and inter-rated by three well-trained lecturers who had been teaching writing skills for more than four years. Based on the results, the participants were divided into two groups of similar size (OF=19, WF=18) and overall equivalent writing competence. An independent-samples t-test revealed that the overall mean score of the oral feedback group constituted 16.47 (SD=3.042) and that of the written feedback group was 16.46 (SD=3.045). Then, the treatment was conducted for two months with single-draft feedback provided on each of the three paragraph types taught during this experimental period: narrative, process, and compare-contrast. The topics included my happy story, how to make a nice cup of coffee, and rural life and city life. The feedback on each topic was comprehensive and targeted all aspects of writing: content, organization, grammar, vocabulary, mechanics and spelling. In this regard, various feedback strategies of each commentary mode were employed to ensure that both groups would receive similar treatment condition and that they would provide more authentic responses to the research questions. It is worth noting that the treatment (i.e. the delivery of feedback) was undertaken with specific reference to the operationalized terms at the very beginning of this study (Please refer to pages 3-4.). Soon after the two-month study, the participants were again asked to write a 150-word paragraph about one of the three topics (i.e. my bedroom, my house, or my favorite place), complete the questionnaires consisting of both close- and open-ended items. Finally, the data obtained from the questionnaires and student paragraphs were coded and input into SPSS 19.0 with the utilization of one-sample t-test, independent-samples t-test, and paired-samples t-test for data analysis, using the test value of 3.5 and the significant level of .05. Findings and Discussion Research question 1: How do Cambodian English-major students at NUM perceive oral and written feedback? A one-sample t-test was employed to provide descriptive statistics by comparing the mean scores and standard deviations of the oral feedback group and the written feedback group with the test value of 3.5 rather than with those of the written feedback group and the oral feedback group, respectively (i.e. oral feedback group vs. written feedback group, and vice versa). Table 1 shows that the students had highly positive attitudes towards oral feedback in the forms of detailed correction (M=4.42, SD=.838, p=.000), comprehensive suggestion (M=4.26, SD=.806, p=.001), and sincere praise (M=4.00, SD=.816, p=.016), which thus enabled them to write with increased confidence (M=4.26, SD=.452, p=.000). This preference was due to the fact that oral feedback was perceived as the cornerstone of building closer bonds (M=4.16, SD=.765, p=.001) between the student and the teacher who always paid special attention during each dialogue (M=4.58, SD=.507, p=.000). However, no statistical differences wer e significant in motivation (C5. It encouraged me to work harder on my revision) and sufficiency (C8. It was helpful enough for my revision), the p-values of which constituted .137 and .497, respectively. Table 1 Descriptive statistics for affective responses of OF group M SD t df p C1. It made me feel I had a more personal and human relationship with my teacher. 4.16 .765 3.750 18 .001 C2. I did not feel more confident about my writing. (Reverse-ordered) 4.26 .452 7.353 18 .000 C3. It gave more details about the errors in my writing. 4.42 .838 4.793 18 .000 C4. It gave more details about how I can improve my writing. 4.26 .806 4.129 18 .001 C5. It discouraged me from working harder on my revision. (Reverse-ordered) 3.84 .958 1.556 18 .137* C6. Praise was helpful for my revision. 4.00 .816 2.669 18 .016 C7. I got special attention from my teacher. 4.58 .507 9.271 18 .000 C8. It was not helpful enough for my revision. (Reverse-ordered) 3.68 1.157 .694 18 .497* * p > .05 (not significant) As can be seen in Table 2, students preferred written feedback in the forms of comprehensive correction (M=4.39, SD=.698, p=.000), detailed suggestion (M=4.39, SD=.608, p=.000), and sincere praise (M=4.22, SD=.647, p=.000), to make them feel more confident about their writing (M=4.00, SD=.594, p=.002). A one-sample t-test also indicates that statistical differences were significant in attention (C7) [M=4.22, SD=.808, p=.001], but not in relationship (C1, p=.655), encouragement (C5, p=.055), and sufficiency (C8, p=.080). Taken Tables 1 and 2 together, oral feedback, unlike written feedback, builds closer bonds between the teacher and the student because the former tends to be more interpersonal in terms of reciprocal attention during the dialogue. While written feedback, if it includes encouragement and personal, text-specific comments, can also strengthen teacher-student relationships, it is not the same experience as sitting down face-to-face for negotiation and questions. Table 2 Descriptive statistics for affective responses of WF group M SD t df p C1. It made me feel I had a more personal and human relationship with my teacher. 3.61 1.037 .455 17 .655* C2. I did not feel more confident about my writing. (Reverse-ordered) 4.00 .594 3.571 17 .002 C3. It gave more details about the errors in my writing. 4.39 .698 5.404 17 .000 C4. It gave more details about how I can improve my writing. 4.39 .608 6.206 17 .000 C5. It discouraged me from working harder on my revision. (Reverse-ordered) 4.00 1.029 2.062 17 .055* C6. Praise was helpful for my revision. 4.22 .647 4.738 17 .000 C7. I got special attention from my teacher. 4.22 .808 3.790 17 .001 C8. It was not helpful enough for my revision. (Reverse-ordered) 3.00 1.138 -1.87 17 .080* * p > .05 (not significant) Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics of the perceptions about the impact of oral feedback on improving student writing. A one-sample t-test was performed with the test value of 3.5 and the p-value of .05. The results show that oral feedback was viewed as effective in encouraging substantive revision of organization (B4) [M=4.32, SD=.671, p=.000], clarity (B1) [M=4.05, SD=.780, p=.006], content (B5) [M=4.00, SD=.577, p=.001], and grammar (B2) [M=3.95, SD=.705, p=.013]. Significantly, oral feedback was also seen as enabling students to use specific linguistic features in conformity to different genres or text-types (M=3.95, SD=.705, p=.013). Such an improvement was strongly confirmed by the

“Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus: Theological Objections” :: Religion, Jewish Apologetics

In his second volume on Jewish apologetics, Michael Brown answers twenty eight Jewish theological objections. Brown summarizes this book in his preface: Theological objections, treated at length in the current volume, cut to the heart of the differences between traditional Judaism and the Messianic Jewish/Christian faith. They revolved around the nature of God (the Trinity, the deity of Jesus, the person of the Holy Spirit), the nature of man and the need for salvation, and sin and the means of atonement. In sum, these objections claim, â€Å"The religion of the New Testament is a completely foreign religion that is not only un-Jewish but is also unfaithful to the Hebrew Bible.† With regard to cutting â€Å"to the heart of the differences between traditional Judaism and Messianic Jewish/Christian faith,† I really appreciate the way Michael Brown demonstrated in a scholarly and balanced way that the Christian faith was perfectly compatible with the Jewish Tanakh. His discussion on the Trinity (the Tri-unity) was excellent. He demonstrated that the Hebrew word for one, ‘echad, does not necessarily refer to absolute unity and, in fact, could very well refer to compound unity (Page 4). He provides examples from the Hebrew Bible where ‘echad is used of a compound or complex unity as per the oneness of Adam and Eve, the many components of the tabernacle being one â€Å"unified† tabernacle, and the one nation of Israel which is made up of hundreds of thousands of people (5). I loved the way he backed up his discussion of the Shema as referring the concept of uniqueness (Deut. 6:4) by citing the New Jewish Publication Society Version: â€Å"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone† (page 6) Brown demonstrated the deity of Christ by focusing on Him as the Son of God and Word of God, who shares in the divine nature, and who revealed Himself to His people in the Old Testament (15-37). I enjoyed Brown’s treatment of the apparent conflict between the passages which declare that no one has seen God with the other passages which clearly state that God was seen by Abraham, Moses, and Jacob (27-34). As he put it, â€Å"it is Jesus the Messiah—the divine Son, the image of the invisible God, the Word made flesh, the exact representation of the Father’s being—who solves the riddle and explains how someone could really see God, even though God cannot be seen.

Romanticism in Tim OBriens Going After Cacciato Essay -- Going After

Romanticism in Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato       Critics of Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato have examined its narrative technique (see Raymond) and its position in literature as metafiction (see Herzog).   Still other critics have commented on the motif of time (see McWilliams) and the theme and structure (see Vannatta).   On the last point, critics find the structure of the novel is fragmented to reveal the nature of the United States' involvement in Vietnam.   Unfortunately, this fragmentation makes the novel appear structurally weak.   Critics have found no unifying element to the parts to affirm the sense of wholeness readers feel after completing O'Brien's novel.   Nevertheless, the reader senses that the seemingly random construction of the novel serves to underscore the random nature of the Vietnam war.   However, to lightly dismiss O'Brien's organization as simply fragmentary does great disservice to this American author.   A critical examination of a traditional element found in American Literature since its inception--the symbolic use of Nature--unifies Going After Cacciato and places the work firmly in the Romantic tradition.   Just as Romanticists have always relied upon Nature to unify and add substantial depth to their novels so, too, has O'Brien.   Specifically, a different element of Nature appears in each of the sections of the novel.   The novel divides into three distinct parts: the observation post chapters, the recollected history chapters, and the chasing Cacciato chapters.   In the observation post chapters, Nature is represented by the sea.   In the recollected history chapters, Nature is represented by the land and the fresh water.   In the chasing Cacciato chapters, Nature becomes ... ....   Nevertheless, the defeat by the land provided O'Brien with a refreshingly new revitalization of the traditionally romantic motifs of water and land, while also exploiting the ambiguous nature of war.         Works Cited       Herzog, Tobey C.   "Going After Cacciato: The Soldier-Author-  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Character Seeking Control."   Critique 24 (Winter 1983): 88-  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   96.    McWilliams, Dean.   "Time in Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato." Critique 29 (Summer 1988): 245-255.    O'Brien, Tim.   Going After Cacciato.   New York: Delta/Seymour   Ã‚  Ã‚   Lawrence, 1978.    Raymond, Michael W.   "Imagined Responses to Vietnam: Tim   Ã‚   O'Brien's Going After Cacciato.   Critique 24 (Winter 1983).    Vannatta, Dennis.   "Theme and Structure in Tim O'Brien's Going   Ã‚   After Cacciato."   Modern Fiction Studies 28 (Summer 1982):   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   242-246.

Acid Rain :: Free Essay Writer

Acid Rain   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Acid rain forms when sulfur and nitrogen dioxides combine with moisture in the atmosphere to produce rain, snow, or another kind of precipitation. This kind of pollution may also be suspended in fog or deposited in a dry form. Acid rain is most common in North America and Europe. Acid rain has also been detected in other areas of the world such as tropical rain forests of Africa. Canada has placed limitations on the sulfur emissions. The United States has not, so the emissions may still drift into Canada.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The acid rain cycle begins with hundreds of power plants burning millions of tons of coal. Burning coal produces electricity for us. Coal is made of carbon, but the coal that we mine is not pure carbon. It is mixed with other minerals. Two of these are sulfur and nitrogen. Then the coal is burned some of the sulfur changes into sulfur dioxide and nitrogen changes into nitrogen oxide. These escape in to the air as poisonous gases. Some smokestacks release chemicals like mercury, arsenic, and aluminum. Some of these minerals are changed in to gases and others become tiny specks of ash. As these chemicals drift, they may change again. They may react with other chemicals in the air. When sulfur dioxide combines with water, the result is sulfuric acid. When nitrogen oxide gas combines with water, the result is also another acid. When the clouds releases rain or other precipitation, the acid goes with it. This is called acid rain.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The level of acid is measured in pH levels. The pH scale begins at 0 and ends with 14. A reading lower than 7 is called acidic, and a reading higher than 7 is called basic. Seven is neutral. Normal rain is slightly acidic with a pH level of about 6.5. Rain with a pH of 5.5 is then times more acidic than normal rain and rain with pH of 4.5 is a hundred times more acidic than normal rain. In parts of the country, rain with pH levels of 4.5 to 5.0 is common.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  An English scientist named Robert Angus Smith discovered acid rain in 1872, but no other scientist continued this study. Then in 1961 the Sweden wanted to know why the fish in their lakes were dying. Svante Odà ©n discovered that the reason was acid rain. After Odà ©n's discovery, other scientist began to study acid rain too.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Acid rain has destroyed plant and animal life in lakes, damaged forests

Flight 587 Crash Investigation

This paper examines the disaster of American Airlines flight 587 on November 12, 2001 in New York City. At least 265 people died in this tragedy making its one of the major disasters in modern aviation history. In the immediate aftermath of the accident, there were great fears that this could be another outcome of a terrorist attack on the U. S soil. Official investigations, however, quickly ruled out any terrorist involvement. Findings indicated that the weak wake turbulence caused by an airplane that took off slightly before flight 587 initiated an unfortunate chain of events that resulted in the catastrophe.The final report of the NTSB held the faulty rudder control system design of Airbus A300-600, and the inadequate pilot training program of American Airlines to be chiefly responsible. In addition, the allegedly quirky response behavior of the first officer at the controls of the airplane is considered a critical factor. However, many people, common men and experts alike, are no t convinced of the validity of the NTSB investigations. Introduction On the morning of November 12, 2001, Tom Lynch, a retired firefighter, is on Rockaway Beach Boulevard taking his regular morning exercise march.He watches an airplane complete a banked turn and start towards the ocean. Then, all of a sudden, he sees a small explosion in the fuselage behind the wing. Two more seconds elapse and suddenly there is a second explosion, engulfing most of the plane in flames. It was the American Airlines Flight 587. Two months after 9/11 – this Airbus 300-600 left John F. Kennedy International Airport en route to Santa Domingo, the Dominican Republic. Less than three minutes after takeoff, the aircraft crashed in a blazing inferno in the heart of the neighborhood of Bell Harbor, Queens. All 251 passengers along with 9 crew members perished.Most remarkably, only five people died on the ground. 44 fire trucks and 200 firefighters were rushed to the scene. Soon, the disaster of AA Fli ght 587 would be found not to be due to terrorism, but to mechanical failure. However, in the stark post 9/11 environment of the day, it was difficult for many people to believe that planes could still fall from the sky for reasons unrelated to terrorism. Feelings and fears were especially strong and these were exacerbated this fresh tragic event. As the author S. D. Manning (2003) put it, â€Å"This crash jarred a city (and a nation) still scarred and numb from the agony it has already endured†The Investigation Tonight, American holds its collective breath, Prays this nightmare is due to mechanical failure, Not premeditated design. The sheer irony would shame Kafka – It's not the disaster itself but its cause That bothers us, enslaves us to out TV's; We pray that it’s something man-made, not man. – L. D. Brodsky. (2002). As the aircraft climbed from John F. Kennedy airport, some people on the ground saw an explosion and fire on the underneath side of the aircraft, which was quickly followed by parts falling off the aircraft, including the vertical stabilizer and rudder.During the aircraft's fall, engines came away from the wings. Falling separately, one engine landed on Beach 129th Street the other engine on Beach 126th. The plane then plunged to the ground on the narrow strip of land known as Rockaway, in Belle Harbor at Queens. The plane's tail broke off and fell into Jamaica Bay, more than a mile from the primary crash site. Although a few stray remnants landed here and there, the fuselage and wings pounded into the home on the corner of Beach 131st Street and Newport Avenue. The plane's impact, subsequent explosions, and fire destroyed other homes.The rudder and the tail fin were found first along the flight path, followed by the engines and then the main wreckage. According to the NTSB, the tail fin and rudder of the plane sheared off as it accelerated. The aircraft began a climbing turn over Jamaica Bay when it encountered tu rbulence caused by the wake vortices generated by a Japan Airlines 747 that had taken off just one minute forty-five seconds earlier. Records from the flight data recorder later recovered from the crash site showed that the turbulence had cause movements of flight 587's rudder, part of which, together with the vertical tail fin, became detached from the aircraft.Control of the aircraft was lost and it fell from the sky. This was the second deadliest crash in US history, but it also, â€Å"was the first example where we had an in-flight failure of a major structural component of an aircraft that in fact was made of composite materials,† as NTSB Chairwoman Marion Blakley would assert later. From the outset, the investigation into the loss of the American Airlines aircraft was conducted on the premise that it was an accident. There seemed to be no immediate indication it was anything else, except for the numerous eyewitness accounts of fire and explosion just before the aircraft plummeted.Officials were keen to reiterate that there was nothing to suggest any foul play had been involved in the loss of the aircraft. Coming so soon after the September 11th outrages, another terrorist assault in America would have been untenable and morally damaging. The President had declared war on terrorism. Congress had been actively involved in developing new legislation to contain the threat that al-Qaeda posed to civil aviation operations. The possibility of a terrorist strike seemed a little farfetched in the state of intensely heightened vigilance that the air transportation industry was in during the aftermath of 9/11.Even if there was foul play involved, it could have been more of a sabotage than the explosion of a bomb. Though terrorism was suspected by everyone, it could not be substantiated. The main difficulty of associating the loss of AA587 with terrorism was the manner of its destruction. If the tail assembly did lie at the root of the problem, then sabotage when the aircraft was on the ground appeared a more likely scenario than a suitcase bomb or a suicidal passenger detonating a device on board the plane. Accident scenarios had to be explored first.Marion Blakley said in an interview on CNN Newsnight on the day of the crash: One of the things that we're very committed to doing is to have a full investigation from a system standpoint, mechanical standpoint, looking at the history of this flight, the crew, the human factors that may have been involved. Immediately following the loss of flight 587, a 40-strong NTSB Go Team under the Investigator-in-Charge Robert Benzon was sent to the site of the crash (NTSB News, 2001). As was the norm, their work was supported by other agencies and companies considered appropriate by the board.The NTSB used the American Airlines facility at Tulsa for a detailed examination of the aircraft engines. No evidence was found of a fire, bird strike, or other pre-impact malfunction. The auxiliary power unit ( used to power the aircraft when it is on the ground) was sent to Honeywell, its manufacturer. Nothing wrong was found with the unit. The tail fin and rudder assemblies underwent visual inspection in New York before being sent to the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.Extensive preliminary tests at Langley sought to identify whether the vertical stabilizer and rudder had had any damage or faults before the accident. None were found. Although the flight data recorder indicated significant rudder movement before the crash, there was nothing to show why this had happened (NTSB News 2002). That both engines separated from the wings as the aircraft fell from a comparatively low height posed another question: Could the engines have been sabotaged, if not by an explosive device, then by some other means so far undetected by the NTSB investigators?â€Å"Investigators suspect a catastrophic engine event as the likely cause of an airline crash Monday in New York,† went CN N. com’s headline on the very day of the accident. However, the primary focus of the investigation eventually shifted to the rudder system. The NTSB team flew to France to work with experts from Airbus Industrie, the aircraft's manufacturer, at their headquarters in Toulouse. The purpose of this visit was to study at firsthand the mechanism of the rudder system and to simulate the pattern of the aerodynamic loads that may have affected the vertical stabilizer during the failure of flight 587.If the investigators could not identify a possible mechanical or structural reason for the accident, they would have been left considering the impossible. Even though they may not have found any terrorist involvement in the loss of AA flight 587, in the absence any other demonstrable reason for the crash, terrorism would be back in focus. Flight History Flight 587 was an Airbus A300-600, Registration Number N14053. It took off from JFK International Airport at 9:14:29 A. M. on November 12 , 2001 in clear weather conditions. At 0915:44.7, the captain Edward States asked, â€Å"little wake turbulence, huh? † to which the first Officer, Sten Molin, replied, at 0915:45. 6, â€Å"yeah. † At 9:15:51, when the plane was 2,000 feet and was over Jamaica Bay, the first officer initiated a series of emergency control inputs and called for the emergency â€Å"escape† maneuver. During the wake turbulence encounter, the airplane’s pitch angle increased from 9? to 11. 5? , decreased to about 10? , and increased again to 11?. At 9:16:01. 9, F. O. Molin was heard on ATC uttering â€Å"losing control.†The airplane crashed 13 seconds later, it was airborne for less than 106 seconds. At 0915:58. 5, the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) recorded the sound of a loud bang. At that time, the airplane was traveling at an airspeed of about 251 knots. â€Å"Hang onto it, Hang onto it,† were the last words of the Captain Edward States, as recorded on the CVR The Crew Background The captain was 42 years of age and the first officer 34. They were hired by American Airlines in July 1985, and March 1991 respectively. The captain had 1,922 hours total flyingtime in military and general aviation before his employment with American Airlines, and 8,050 hours total flying time thereafter which included 3,448 hours as pilot-in-command and 1,723 hours as a pilot-in-command for A300 specifically. His last proficiency check took place on June 21, 2001; and his last pilot-in-command line check occurred on July 31, 2001. He consumed alcohol sparingly and never during a time around his work schedule. According to a colleague, he was an extremely good pilot, very relaxed and competent.The first officer had 3,220 hours total flying time in commercial and general aviation before his employment with American Airlines, and 4,403 hours total flying time, which included 1,835 hours as second-in-command for A300 specifically. Both the captain and the first of ficer had no FAA records that indicated any incident history or enforcement action. One pilot who worked with the first officer, however, described him as being â€Å"very aggressive† on the rudder pedals after a wake turbulence encounter. Except for that, his overall skills were described as excellent, and â€Å"well above the norm. †The 5M ConceptThe 5M concept is a risk assessment tool used to graphically illustrate how the dynamic interaction of the man, the machine and the media (that is, environment) converge to produce either a successful mission or if unsuccessful, a mishap. Man-category encompasses aircrew members, their training, selection, proficiency, habit patterns, performance, and personal factors. Factors under â€Å"performance† heading include awareness, perceptions, saturation, distraction, channelized attention, stress, confidence, adaptive skills, and fatigue (physical, motivational, sleep deprivation, circadian rhythm, klutz).â€Å"Persona l factors† include job satisfaction, values, families/friends, command/control, discipline (internal and external), and communication skills. The Machine-category encompasses the various design, maintenance, logistics, and other technical data related to the aircraft. The Media is the environment in which aircrew fly and includes factors and forces that are related to climactic, operational, hygienic conditions. The fourth category is the management. Management regulates standards, procedures, and controls.The interaction between the 4M’s Man, Media, Machine, and Management determine the desired outcome, or the Mission. When outcome fails to meet anticipated goals, these 5 M’s must be thoroughly reassessed (Civil Air Patrol). The Shell Model The factors that affect the outcome of each flight can be assessed under the SHELL Model: Software, Hardware, Environment, Liveware (outer ring) and Liveware (inner ring). Software is what makes the system work, and includes guidelines, regulations, operation specifications, and company policy and procedures.Hardware is the physical equipment that is necessary for a flight to operate. The category â€Å"Environment† relates to the broad external context that can affect the flight or the pilot, and includes factors such as weather, g-forces, and ambient light. Liveware represents the human factors. The outer ring includes air traffic controllers, flight service briefers, dispatchers, other crewmembers, pilots of other aircraft, flight attendants.The inner ring is the most important part of the SHELL model and includes various variables affecting the competence and performance of the pilots (Shields 2002). The NTSB Findings The NTSB officials very early on in the investigation suggested the cause of the crash might be due to wake turbulence from an aircraft that departed earlier. However, many experts doubted that the light turbulence from such an encounter would register on the scale of the type o f extreme turbulence that aircraft undergo from atmospheric disturbances such as in the vicinity of thunderstorms.Commercial jets are built to withstand forces up to 2. 5 G-forces, while the turbulence that hit the plane was one tenth of a G-force — barely strong enough to be even noticed (Dyer 2002). The Board then suggested that the composite vertical stabilizer may be faulty. However, this does not address the numerous reports of reliable witnesses, such as policemen and firemen, concerning fire and explosions coming from the aircraft before the vertical stabilizer ripped from the aircraft.Finally, after three years of investigations, National Transportation and Safety Board stood by its wake turbulence hypothesis. However, it was only a triggering event. The report, under the heading â€Å"Probable Cause† placed most of the blame on the first office for his â€Å"unnecessary and excessive rudder pedal inputs. † It goes on to say, â€Å"Contributing to these rudder pedal inputs were characteristics of the Airbus A300-600 rudder system design and elements of the American Airlines Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program† (NTSB 2004).The NTSB's conclusion was that the cause of the crash was the tail separating from the fuselage, which happened as a result of pilot placing loads on the tail that exceeded its ultimate limit – which in turn was an outcome of pilot’s rudder movements. He put excessive pressure on the rudder pedal in response to the wake turbulence caused by the JAL flight that preceded them. But why did the pilot move the rudder pedals as aggressively as he did? This became an issue of great controversy.The NTSB report dwells on the previously observed tendency of the first officer to place inappropriate pedal inputs, which in tandem with two other reasons, the deficient pilot training system and the defective Airbus rudder control system, resulted in a colossal disaster: The Safety Board’s investigat ion determined that three main factors influenced the first officer’s rudder use during the accident sequence: a tendency to react aggressively to wake turbulence, as evidenced by his responses to previous wake turbulence encounters; his pilot training, including the training he received at American Airlines regarding wake turbulence, upset recovery, and rudder pedal use; and the characteristics of the A300-600 rudder control system. (NTSB 2004)These findings resulted in a mammoth row between Airbus and American Airlines is –– with Airbus contending that the first officer’s inappropriate response caused because of his improper training by American Airlines, and the American Airlines contending the Airbus’ rudder pedal system unusually sensitive.The NTSB RecommendationsThe NTSB report discusses several safety issues relevant to the Flight 587 disaster, focusing on characteristics of the A300-600 rudder control system design, A300-600 rudder pedal in puts at high airspeeds, aircraft-pilot coupling, flight operations at or below an airplane’s design maneuvering speed, and upset recovery training programs. Airbus Industrie and American Airlines have acted upon industry-wide amendments to ensure safety of operation of aircraft.American Airlines continue to operate the Airbus A300, Airbus are confident of the structural and functional integrity of their plane – although many AA pilots and those of other airlines sought transfer to supposedly much more stable Boeing airplanes in the wake of the disaster. Conclusion New Yorkers may be resilient, But they have their breaking points, And they must be getting close to them. Like all of us, they want to believe That something like a shorting wire, Exploding fuel tank, or malfunctioning turbofan Is the reason at least 265 perished in Queens. – L. D. Brodsky. (2002).The biggest unresolved issue in this entire tragic episode of Flight 587 crash were the flames and the ex plosions noted by over 50% of over 400 witnesses. In its report, the NTSB attributes them to either an â€Å"initial release of fuel† or the â€Å"effects of engine compressor surges. † Both of them could have been caused due to out-of-control motion during the airplane's precipitous descent. However, one must remember that the airplane had just took over and was not at a great height, and most importantly that the witnesses observed the fire before anything else happened.In effect, the fire could not have been set off during the descent and as a result of the descent. Most of the witnesses are unequivocal about it and stand vehemently by their testimony to this day. Many quarters have felt that the NTSB prematurely declared the crash to be an accident and hastily concluded that the tail separation was the initiating event without adequate analysis of all the evidence, and especially without giving proper credence to witness testimony – and later went on to bols ter its convenient preconceived notions.Today, claims of NTSB cover-up and conspiracy theories pointing to terrorist involvement abound around this subject – making the tragedy of flight 587 a lingering mystery.References:Brodsky, L. D. (2002). Shadow War: A Poetic Chronicle of September 11 and Beyond, Volume Two. St. Louis, Missouri : Time Being Books Civil Air Patrol. Civil Air Patrol Guide to Operational Risk Management. Retrieved 3 March 2007 from www. orwg. cap. gov/Safety/CAPguidetoORM. pdf Dyer, N. (2002). The Mystery of Flight 587?What Caused the Crash of Flight 587? Science World. Feb 25 2002. Retrieved 3 March 2007 from http://www. findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m1590/is_10_58/ai_83667600Manning, S. D. (2004). American Dream, A Search for Justice. New York : A&M Publishing NTSB News (2001).American Airlines Flight 587. National Transportation and Safety Board. 12 November 2001. Retrieved 3 March 2007 from http://www. ntsb. gov/events/2001/AA587/default. htm   NTS B News. (2002).Fourth Update on NTSB Investigation into Crash of American Airlines Flight 587. National Transportation and Safety Board. January 15, 2002. Retrieved 3 March 2007 from http://www. ntsb. gov/Pressrel/2002/020115. htm NTSB. (2004).Aircraft Accident Report. National Transportation and Safety Board. October 26, 2004. Retrieved 3 March 2007 from http://www. ntsb. gov/publictn/2004/AAR0404. pdf Shields. J. (2002).SHELL Model. Josh's Little Aviation Place on the Web. Retrieved 3 March 2007 from http://people. aero. und. edu/~jshields/CRM/shell_model. htm

Erikson’s psychosocial development theory Essay

IntroductionAs a fresh minor, he was visiting ein truththing an indep remnantent, curious, and analytical toddler would be escorting. At one and a half age of age, in his molybdenum spirit level of electric shaver suppuration, he was know his walking skills and inauguration to work on control and management. By the time he turned four he was in his attached dot of education, branch to re-create what he was learning from adults, and exploring sore and evoke activities. He was birthn the prospect of rid play and improved his maven of self-confidence. This reek of imagination and creativity would cooperate him passage to the next spot. in the long run, in the quartern phase of tyke break inment, rough age seven, he was beginning to research who he sincerely was and what his purpose and portion was. He was amaze into social situations and was given the opportunity to impact with other tiddlerren.He was Erik Erikson, and little did he know whiteth orn need at a time lived through his protest lay outs of psychosocial pay offment. In this paper, I leave behind discuss Eriksons psychosocial ontogeny guess. His credentials and inquiry ar classical to corroboration his possibleness, and it is interesting to know the facts to the highest peak famous theorists. I will be concentrating on set ups two, terce, and four as they pertain to primarily early boorhood school-age shavers. I will too discuss what I pick upd in an real classroom and compargon and contrast what I order out related to the unlike exhibits. Finally, I will mention the contr all oversy over Erik Eriksons guess and the evidence to support and argue the facts. Erikson let oned an important guess that has answered explain human increase.Erik EriksonErik Erikson was born in 1902 in Germany. He did not hook on his deportmentspantime as a psychologist in fact, Erikson never graduated from high prepargon (Woolfolk, 2007, p. 67). Eriks ons heavy interest and influences for individuality were erupted through his suffer watchs during coach ( avant-garde Wagner, 2007). Erikson spent his nestlinghood in Germany, his adolescence bunk through Italy, and his unseasoned adulthood in Austria (Berger, 2005, p. 35). A meeting with Sigmund Freud in capital of Austria led Erikson to aninterest for studying analytic thinking (Woolfolk, 2007). correspond to new wave Wagner (2007), Erikson earned a certificate from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. on with psychologists such as Freud, Erikson believed that crises of adult biography reflect unresolved involutions of childhood. However, his heads differed signifi prattly from Freuds in that they emphasized the great unwasheds tellingships to their family and culture, not only to their inner urges (Berger, 2005, p. 36). by means of his phases, Woolfolk (2007) suggests that Erikson offered a framework for learning the ineluctably of young people in relation to the society in which they grow, learn and posterior make their contri thoions (p. 67).Each of the incremental set ups confronts a person with a new lying-in or efficacy that essential be manipulateed for the better possible and nearly successful phylogenesis (Coon, 2006). Be draw of this mastery, Erikson firmly believed in a psychosocial dilemma that causes problems through severally comprise. A psychosocial dilemma is a conflict amid person-to-personized impulses and the social creative legal action (Coon, 2006, p. 113). The surgery in which the individual resolves severally developmental conflict will have an impact on their self-image and placement of the bea (Woolfolk, 2007). Erikson identified viii different stages in the life cycle for human using (Gerrig and Zimbardo, 2005). Eriksons psychosocial theory emphasized the emergence of self, the search for identity, the individuals kinds with others, and the role of culture through life (Woolfolk, 2007, p. 67). Erikson fur at that placed his cargoner by moving to the United States in 1933 and accepting a t distributively(prenominal)ing mail service at the Harvard Medical School. As head as his new t all(prenominal)ing position, he to a fault developed his suffer mystical practice in child analytic thinking (Van Wagner, 2007).After arriving in the United States, fit in to Berger (2005), Erikson studied Harvard pupils, children at play, and Native Ameri bottomland cultures (p. 35). All of these different experiences helped Erikson to record the grandness of cultural diversity and signifi merchant shipt changes that number passim the life cycle (Berger, 2005). According to the Erik Erikson Biography, he utilized the knowledge he gained of cultural, environmental, and social influences to further develop his psychoanalytical theory. Through his research, Erikson gatheredall of his reading and results and published numerous books on his happen uponings, including puerility and Society and The Life Cycle Completed. Eriksons book, Ghandis Truth, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and accepted a national Book Award. In concomitant to Eriksons psychosocial development theory, he also added an recognizeing of the development of personality and how it changes passim the life cycle (Van Wagner, 2007).Psychosocial Development lay outsErikson proposed 8 developmental stages chase aftering the entire life span, distributively characterized by a special(prenominal) challenge, or developmental crisis (Berger, 2005, p. 36). Throughout stage one, trust versus apprehension, the main challenge of a child is the signifi weedt dependence on other people, mainly the p arents. Erikson suggested that this stage was cognise as trust or mistrust because certain situations are developed at this time (Coon, 2006). After attaining the goal of stage one, the ability to trust, the child is ready to bm onto stage two of development.Stage Two- impropriety versus Shame a nd DoubtEriksons flash stage, shore leave versus ravish and precariousness, marks the beginning of self-control and self-confidence (Woolfolk, 2007, p. 68). This stage occurs between the ages of eighteen months and three eld. Children are any sufficient in activities including toilet training, or begin to precariousness their own abilities if they are unsuccessful (Berger, 2005). The children that potful complete this stage with success develop a sentience of confidence and security, just those who do not succeed are left with a find outing of self- suspect (Van Wagner, 2007). If parents do not maintain a reassuring, confident attitude and do not reinforce the childs efforts to master basic get and cognitive skills, children may begin to feel shame they may learn to doubt their abilities to manage the sphere on their own terms (Woolfolk, 2007, p. 68). Toddlers want to develop autonomy (also known as self-rule) over themselves and be able-bodied to control their actions . According to Erikson, the most efficient track of getting olden this crisis and development autonomy is a mind impression of guidance and security from parents (Berger, 2005). Overall, in stagetwo, Erikson believes that if children experience too much doubt they will privation self-pride in their abilities throughout their life. As long as the child can maintain their self-esteem and develop their intelligence of autonomy, they can touch on on to the third stage (Woolfolk, 2007). Stage Three- Initiative versus GuiltDuring the third developmental stage described by Erikson, called go-ahead versus transgression, selfesteem emerges from the skills and competencies that demonstrate emancipation and initiatory (Berger, 2005, p. 237). This stage generally happens between the ages of three and six. During this stage, children move from simple activities to much complex such as developing self-control and beginning to hit initiative (Coon, 2006). Woolfolk states the challen ge of this uttermost is to maintain a zest for activity and at the same time understand that not all(prenominal) impulse can be acted on (2007, p. 68). During the first geezerhood of crop, children call back the initiative and control their world through organizing social interactions (Van Wagner, 2007). Children want to inscribe in adult like activities, entirely are afraid(p) of the fault they may experience (Berger, 2005). If children are not allowed to do things on their own, a sense of guilt may develop they may watch over to believe that what they want to do is of all time wrong (Woolfolk, 2007, p. 68). When children play, they learn how to make plans and keep an eye on through with them. Parents should give children the freedom and opportunity to do things on their own, such as ask questions, play, and choose their own activities (Coon, 2006).Toward the end of the pre naturalize geezerhood, children who develop that sense of trust can initiate activities both intel lectual and motor, to help them learn that they can do things on their own (Gerrig and Zimbardo, 2005). According to the article entitled, Eriksons theory of Psychosocial Development, Children who are successful at this stage feel capable and able to take others. Those who fail to acquire these skills are left with a sense of guilt, self-doubt, and lack of initiative (Van Wagner, 2007). Many psychologists, such as Erikson, believe that guilt is a more(prenominal) mature and natural emotion than shame, but both shame and guilt elicit from social standards. On the other hand, guilt indicates that the child hasbecome self-motivated (Berger, 2005). The ways that parents pit to their childs activities all encourages their sense of freedom and confidence or produces the flavors of guilt, which makes the child feel that they are doing wrong and cannot vote down this challenge to move to the next stage (Gerrig and Zimbardo, 2005). After overcoming and mastering the skill to take ini tiative, the child is ready to move to the fourth stage of development.Stage Four- Industry versus unfavorable positionThe challenge for the child during their school years is what Erikson named application versus substandardity (Woolfolk, 2007). This is the fourth stage of psychosocial development, and occurs during the early school years from well-nigh age five to 11. During the elementary school years, the child who has successfully resolved the crises of the fore expiry stages is ready to go beyond stochastic exploring and testing to the systematic development of competencies (Gerrig and Zimbardo, 2005, p. 338). During these years, children learn and develop skills that are valued by society, and their success or failure affects their liveliness of competence (Coon, 2006). During this psychosocial crisis of industry versus inferiority, children work on mastering the abilities that are valued by their culture (Berger, 2005). The children can see the relationship between de termination and the pleasure that comes when a job is completed (Woolfolk, 2007). Eriksons Theory of Psychosocial Development suggests that social interactions allow children to develop pride in their accomplishments and abilities (Van Wagner, 2007). Children learn the sense of industry if they win praise for their fecund activities, and the sense of inferiority if their efforts are wretched or unsuccessful (Coon, 2006). Children must master new skills and work toward new goals, at the same time they are creation equationd to others and risking failure (Woolfolk, 2007, p. 69). Each child decide themselves in their own way as either industrious or inferior they hang at it as either being a winner or a loser (Berger, 2005).The way that severally individual child copes with their own crisis in this stage, affects theoutcomes of the rest of their school years (Woolfolk, 2007). one time again parental guidance is important. Thechildren that are praised by their parents develop a feeling of confidence and belief in their own abilities, but those who receive little scholarship from their parents revert back to the feeling of doubt from the previous stages (Van Wagner, 2007). As children move to the adolescence stage, their cognitive processes develop more effectively and they can think theoretically and can understand the ideas of others more distinctly (Woolfolk, 2007). The severity and degree to the challenges varies widely from each child, and they must learn how to cope with their challenges individually to overcome them, and move onto the next stage of development. Most of the techniques to transition to the next stage come naturally, but each child may develop them at different rates. It is important to help the child successfully overcome their challenges to help them move onto the next stage (Berger, 2005). at that place are four more developmental stages that help in describing the development of the psychosocial theory, and Van Wagner (2007) sta tes that during each stage people experience a conflict or crisis that helps as a transition in the developmental process. This challenge or crisis must be met and overcome before the child can move onto the next stage. While forecast out how to conquer their own personal challenge, the child will learn skills and abilities that will help them in their development throughout the life cycle (Woolfolk, 2007).ObservationsWhen children actuate school, around the age of five, their cognitive abilities are developing rapidly (Woolfolk, 2007). The elementary-school years are a childs entrance into life (Coon, 2006, p. 114). Children begin to process more training faster they are moving from preoperational to cover operational thinking. As these internal changes progress, the children are spending hours e rattling weekday in the new physical and social world of school (Woolfolk, 2007, p. 69). On March 3, 2008, I visited Kasson-Mantorville main(a) School. I was in a mo cross out class room andwas able to observe and analyze the children. I cherished to sense of smell for the special actions and transitions Erik Erikson discusses in his second, third, and fourth stages of psychosocial development.Since I was in a second grade classroom I knew that I would believably see children transitioning from stage three to four, and also children already in stage four. I was first looking for the physical development of the children. By the age of six or seven most children should have the ability of grasping and controlling, which is one of the main abilities intentional in stage two. I discover that most children had good control over their actions and knew what they were doing. Next, I wanted to look for the independence in each schoolchild. As Woolfolk (2007) states the child continues to become more assertive and to take more initiative but may be too forceful, which can lead to guilty feelings (p. 67). I looked for a student that seemed to be very talkative or participated often. I wanted to try and find patterns in their behavior. I watched one special(prenominal) student for awhile, and noticed a hardly a(prenominal) interesting things. First, he always wanted to participate, which signified that he wasnt afraid to talk in front of the class. This shows that he is able to be independent and shows that he has successfully reached the goal of stage three, which is self-esteem and self-concept, or understanding of the self (Berger, 2005, p. 237).Lastly, I wanted to see if any student was in stage four of industry versus inferiority. Erikson suggests that social relationships and interaction become very important in this stage. Students face the challenge of learning new tasks and when accomplishing each assigning they either feel a sense of success (industry) or failure (inferiority). I noticed that if a student received a wrong answer they would cover their head in their desk or look down. On the other hand, if a student was correct, t hey would hold their head high and were kinda proud. These observations do it easier to picture what each child goes through during each stage. Observing students in the classroom gives sufficient first-hand experience in what children act like in each stage, and being able to analyze their actions made it easier to understand. I was able to directly hold in the characteristics common to each stage to unique(predicate)children, and see how each child was different from the others. It is important to remember that all children develop at different rates and or so students may not be in the same stage as others. I looked for common characteristics andbehaviors to compare, and found it very encouraging in my research to link the qualities with the specific stages.ControversyEriksons research and development of his psychosocial theory has sparked controversy over the years. there have been specific questions about his theory regarding the issues of the identity and niggardness, and how they intertwine in the development of a person. Eriksons work helped start the lifespan development approaching, and his theories have been in particular useful in understanding adolescence. but feminists have criticized this notion that identity precedes casualness, because their research indicates that for women, identity achievement is fused with achieving intimacy (Woolfolk, 2007, p. 72). Erikson did not believe in the intimacy part of development in young children, unlike other psychologists such as Sigmund Freud. Erikson believed that the main part of each stage was a developmental crisis, while Freud on the other hand believed in the sexual impulses each person experienced. thither are different opinions and perspectives on human development, and each theorist has a different approach in figuring out the best way to describe the human life cycle.There are more substantiative observations on Eriksons theory than there are negative. Most of the negative responses c an be outweighed by positive remarks. ace of the main concerns with people that disagree with Erikson is the developmental crisis aspect. According to the article entitled Eriksons Psychosocial Development Theory (2007), the challenges and conflicts in each stage are not clearly defined. This article also suggests that the challenges in each stage may overlap and that could cause confusion in determining which stage a child may be in. On the other hand, Erikson suggests that these challenges must be achieved progressively and cannot beovercome in one day. There are disagreements with every theory and each theorist has their own way of proving its truth. Erikson believed that the crises were not determined by age, rather the achievement of the abilities that must be mastered in each stage (Chapman, 2007).ConclusionAll in all, the psychosocial development theory created by psychologist Erik Erikson, has been helpful in trying to figure out the process of the human life cycle. Erikson s oscilloscope was important in that his own personal experiences influenced him, and sparked the interest of human development and identity. macrocosm influenced by Freud, he was able to compare and contrast his own theory to Freuds, and give reasons why he thought his stages of development were more accurate. In Eriksons eight stages, primarily stages two, three, and four, concentrate on the years of early childhood. These stages are crucial for the development of a child while going through many changes, such as beginning school and becoming more independent. The second stage of autonomy versus shame/doubt, from the age of eighteen months to three years, is when the child develops self-esteem and confidence. After mastering these skills the child progresses to stage three, (age three to six years) initiative versus guilt, and begins to develop a sense of independence.Finally between the age of five and eleven and in stage four, industry versus inferiority, the child is met with social interactions and learns the abilities valued by society. These three stages are important in a child during their early years of life. By observing an actual classroom setting, I was able to apply the abilities described in each stage and analyze how the children acted. I noticed common patterns and behaviors that were described in each of the three stages, and thought it was very helpful to see the children in an actual classroom setting at work. There were some differences from Eriksons theory to the way the children acted. As with any theory, there are controversies that need to be researched. Eriksons theory has been questioned on why there isnt a place for intimacy in the stages, but his stages are set up to evolve the identity. There is also the question of the clearly defined transition from each crisis. Erikson concludes thatone cannot transition from one crisis to the next in one day. The change of stages must be gradual with the mastering of specific abilities.Erik Erikson believed that his stages of psychosocial development would help people understand the changes each child goes through. He labeled each phase according to the characteristics and behaviors the child exhibits around a certain age. With his theory, people can begin to understand what children go through during their first few years of development. I believe that Erikson created an efficient theory for people to analyze and observe in children to determine how they develop. I think that this theory, along with any other theory, gives an alternate view on the development of a human, and how they develop and master the abilities learned throughout life.ReferencesBerger, K. S., (2005). The developing person through the life span. refreshful York, NY Catherine Woods.Chapman, A. (2006-7). Eriksons psychosocial development theory. Retrieved March 16, 2008, from http//www.businessballs.com/erik_erikson_psychosocial_theory.htmfreuds_psychose xual_stages.Coon, D. (2006). psychology A journey. Mason, OH Thomson Wadsworth. Gerrig, R. J., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2005). Psychology and life. Boston, MA Pearson Education. Van Wagner, K. (2007). Erik Erikson biography. Retrieved February 18, 2008, from http//psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_erikson.htm. Van Wagner, K. (2007). Eriksons theory of psychosocial development. Retrieved February 23, 2008, from http//psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/psychosocial.htm. Woolfolk, A. (2007). educational psychology. Boston, MA Pearson Education.